Wisconsin voucher program for special needs students expected to triple next year

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

One of the last big decisions 12-year-old Alontay's mother made before she died was to move her son to St. Marcus Lutheran School.

Costs of Wisconsin's Special Needs Scholarship Program are expected to triple next year. And critics say changes made by the Legislature could create disparities in services between private and public school students.

And for Alontay, his sister-turned-guardian says, it was a lifesaver.

"He's doing great," said his sister, Kiyana, who asked that they be identified only by their first names. Kiyana had encouraged her mother to move Alontay from his nearby public school where he was struggling socially and academically.

"There are still challenges," Kiyana said of her brother's adjustment to the new school. "But it's a significant change."

Alontay is one of 68 students who attend St. Marcus through Wisconsin's 2-year-old Special Needs Scholarship Program, which allows children with disabilities, regardless of income, to attend private schools on taxpayer-funded vouchers.

The cost of the program, which the state recoups by reducing funding to local school districts, is expected to triple next year, to nearly $10 million, according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

That spike is at the center of a renewed debate over the program, which was approved without public input as part of the 2015-'17 state budget.

Public school officials say they'll be forced to pass those increased costs on to local taxpayers or cut their own programming — for students with and without disabilities.

More important, they say, a new provision that takes effect next fall could create disparities in services between students in public and private schools.

That change will require taxpayers to cover 90% of the cost of services for private school children, while special education reimbursements for their public school peers are covered on average, they say, at less than 26%.

"This is all so inequitable," Laura Myrah, superintendent of Arrowhead Unified School District, said of the program, which cost her district more than $104,000 last year.

"There could be services provided and paid for by taxpayers for private school students that ... we can't offer to students because they don’t fit the federal guidelines for special education services."

Jim Bender, president of School Choice Wisconsin, said critics are speculating on hypothetical scenarios and that the funding mechanism mirrors that for special education students who move between public school districts under the open enrollment program.

In addition, he said, none of the 28 schools enrolled in the scholarship program plans to take advantage of the high-cost funding that would push payments beyond the current $12,207 per student.

"If there's actually a problem — if we get to a financial place where there's a problem — we're happy to find solutions," Bender said.

The debate is the latest iteration of the decades-long battle over private school choice in Wisconsin where the use of vouchers — initially intended to give poor children a leg up — has expanded to include middle-income families.

The special needs voucher is the state's first that is not limited by income. This year, state and local taxpayers will spend more than $272 million to send about 36,000 children to private schools, and those numbers are projected to grow.

Critics see the special needs scholarships as a threat to public schools, where special education services are limited by federal law and where funding, which has remained flat for the last decade, has not kept pace with the needs of the students.

"School districts at the local level are spending over $1 billion annually after state and federal reimbursements are accounted for to ensure that our students with disabilities get the support that they need," Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Darienne Driver testified this month before a bipartisan legislative commission tasked with reforming the state's byzantine school funding system.

School choice advocates have argued for years that private schools were at a disadvantage in educating special needs children because the standard payment — $7,323 to $7,969 last year, depending on the grade — was inadequate to cover the higher costs of services.

The Special Needs Voucher Program was intended to remedy that, giving schools about $12,000 for each qualifying student. This year, 246 students are attending 28 schools on the vouchers, at a cost of nearly $3 million to taxpayers.

Enrollment and costs are expected to balloon beginning next year because of changes made in the 2017-'19 state budget — again, critics complain, with no opportunity for the public to weigh in.

Lawmakers last fall eliminated two initial barriers to enrollment: The original law had limited the vouchers to students previously enrolled in a public school who had been rejected for an open enrollment slot at another public school. The argument was that vouchers were needed to rescue kids trapped in public schools that didn't meet their needs.

Lawmakers also lifted the $12,207 cap on costs for special needs students in the private schools, agreeing to pay up to 90% of any costs incurred. The first $18,000 would be deducted from the local school district's state aid, which districts can then recoup from their property taxpayers. And anything beyond that, up to 90%, the state will cover from its general fund.

That's particularly frustrating for disability-rights advocates who have lobbied for years for an increase in special education funding for public schools.

"This is funding that will now be funneled into private schools ... that we're told doesn't exist for public education," said Joanne Juhnke of Wisconsin Family Ties, which advocates for families of children with special needs.

And public schools, Myrah of Arrowhead said, can't pass their increased costs of special ed services onto property taxpayers because of levy limits.

"If we have a costly intervention ... we can't just raise the tax levy. ... We need to shift resources from other areas of the budget," she said.

St. Marcus Lutheran School, where almost all of the 850 students attend on a voucher of some kind, is the largest participant in the special needs scholarship program.

Superintendent Henry Tyson said the program has allowed it to dramatically improve its special education services. He supports the legislative changes that will allow more children to enroll, as well as the increased funding.

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But he said he would "absolutely have a concern" if the program created disparities in services for students.

"My belief is that funding for any child ... ought to be equitable, whether in public or private school," Tyson said. "If anything is being set up that gives additional funding for the private sector that exceeds funding kids get in the public school, I think we’d have problem with that."